Chapter 43 Truth Entire, Truth Alone
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Truth Entire, Truth Alone
The hearing was held in a small courtroom mostly used for mock trials. With polished oak paneled walls, cream flagstones, and gleaming pews with emerald-cushioned benches, it was one of the nicer rooms at headquarters, though it had always smelled, quite inexplicably, of stale rye bread.
Atop a raised dais, Judge Taril Nercan sat behind a bench.
In front of him were several pages of notes, a quill and inkwell, a hardwood gavel, and a crystal-cut glass of lemonade, which Nercan was famously fond of.
There was also a set of small, intricate ascenite scales, engraved with the words: Truth Entire and Truth Alone, Justice Served and Vallin Grown.
Many found the motto of the court system trite, mawkish, but Auria adored the words, the simplicity of them, the idea of forging a just country one case at a time.
The judge himself was in his seventies, with heavily hooded eyes, severe jowls, and wisps of white hair on either side of his bald head. He wore a dark green judge’s cloak, the color of a forest under nightfall, and seemed to be in a perpetual state of nodding to himself.
Auria and Nissa were ushered into the courtroom last, when everyone else was already seated.
At the sight of Nercan, Auria sighed with relief.
He’d been working in Atherin for four decades and was not affiliated with either Karvas or Dematus in any known way.
His politics slanted left of center, particularly in instances of nonviolent crime, and he was famous for antagonizing the prosecution into really proving their case beyond reasonable doubt.
That doubt, that ambiguity, was the ravine inside which Auria would build her case. She would turn the intruder’s invisibility into a strength of the defense, rather than a weakness.
Nissa, dressed in a glorious blood-orange Wielder cloak, was shown to the accused bench, while Auria, wearing her periwinkle scholar’s gown, laid out her notes on the opposing counsel bench.
Several high-ranking detectives and officers of the courts occupied the frontmost pews—including Auria’s mentor, Tenébo Jebat—while Captain Karvas took the bench that would be reserved for the prosecution, if this were a real trial.
But it was not a trial. It was only a hearing. Auria had to remind herself of this.
The judge called the room to order, and Nissa and Auria were sworn under oath, each resting one palm over a weathered Saints’ manifesto and another over their hearts. In turn, they murmured, “Truth entire and truth alone.”
“I henceforth declare this hearing in session,” said Judge Nercan, the edges of his voice crusted with age. “Captain Karvas, you may begin your opening statement.”
Karvas paced in slow circles around the patch of floor in front of the judge’s dais.
His hair was combed into a low ponytail, and the veins stood out starkly in his ring-tattooed throat.
“One week ago, early on Laving morning, I was sleeping soundly in bed when an alarm triggered—an alarm I had frankly been expecting to trigger for days. Said alarm was linked to a desk drawer in my office, which contained a letter written for Saffron Killoran by her late father. This letter had been inexplicably in the possession of Captain Elodora Aspar, may she rest in peace, alongside a note ordering her successor to pass the letter on to its recipient upon Aspar’s own death.
I, however, do not engage with traitors or turncloaks, and opted not to carry out this request.”
A pause for emphasis, as though daring anyone in the room to challenge his decision, or perhaps break into applause, but the court remained silent.
“I did, however, inform Detective Marriosan of its location.” Karvas pursed his thin, dark lips.
“I’d been having doubts about her loyalties, as well as those of Detective Naszi.
Both detectives have been spotted talking with the traitor Killoran since her incarceration and subsequent indictment into the Bloodmoons.
I suspected that if Marriosan knew of the letter’s whereabouts, she might act upon it.
I found it both validating and disappointing that this came to pass so soon.
“At the sound of the alarm, I quickly left my bedchambers for my office, where I found Marriosan sitting against the wall next to my office door, looking extraordinarily guilty. Inside the office was Naszi, staring at my open desk drawer as though it contained all the world’s riches.”
“Objection,” Auria said, rising to her feet. “Your Honor, the prosecution is editorializing.”
“There is no prosecution, Marriosan,” Judge Nercan replied, but not unkindly. He had a calm, genial manner not unlike her late grandfather. “And you know as well as I do that editorializing is permitted in the opening statement.”
“Thank you, Your Honor,” said Karvas sourly, as Auria sat back down. “By the time I arrived, the letter was already gone. Perhaps dropped into the hands of Saffron Killoran, who may have been waiting beneath the open window.”
Objection—speculation, Auria wanted to scream, but instead she bit down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood.
For the thousandth time, she wished truth elixir was allowable in an interrogation chamber or a court of law.
Dematus had upheld its prohibition under the mantle of “protecting state secrets,” but since learning of the Grand Arbiter’s corruption, Auria was certain it was to protect herself.
If Auria ever made it as far as the hallowed seat, one of her first orders of business would be overturning it.
Karvas deepened his voice. “Not only have these two detectives breached the Order’s own Code of Conduct, but also Vallin’s Constitution of Laws.
For the former, I might posit insubordination—Marriosan was ordered not to tell a soul of the letter’s location—as well as trespassing in the quarters of a superior office, and the leaking of confidential information.
In terms of criminal law, it’s inarguable that Marriosan and Naszi committed burglary and property damage, as well as the aiding and abetting of an enemy. ”
Judge Nercan’s nose wrinkled. “I might caution you against the word inarguable, Captain. These are the very accusations we are here to argue, after all.”
Karvas visibly puffed up at the word accusation, as though his version of events was a foregone conclusion and he hadn’t anticipated any rebuttal, but said nothing further.
“Detective Marriosan, if you’d like to share your counter statement?”
And so Auria described, in truth entire and truth alone, what had happened the night Levan Celadon broke into the Order.
She did not share his name, for she could not prove it had been him, but referred to him throughout as the intruder.
She described the way he’d entered under the guise of invisibility, the way the migraine and the night-shift exhaustion and the incomplete invisibility tincture had smeared the colors of the common room, the way she had sacrificed her life for the letter, the way Nissa had pursued him from the hospital wing, the fight that broke out and the damage that was done, and how the intruder had somehow wrested free of debilitan to press a knife to Nissa’s throat.
She confessed everything that happened thereafter, her eventual concession to his demands, all the acts of wrongdoing, the breaking of the locking charms and the removal of the letter from the drawer, how she had sat, broken and empty and entirely despondent, as the intruder had fled out of the window. Then, of course, the arrival of Karvas.
Throughout her statement, the captain watched her ardently.
As it became clear she was not contesting the actions she took, his eyes shone with a kind of hungry gleam, and a sense of disquiet swelled inside her.
Perhaps she’d been foolish to essentially plead guilty—perhaps a tough sentence was awaiting them both.
But she could not lie, not under oath. Instead, she had to argue that her actions were not as immoral as they seemed.
Once she’d finished talking, the not-prosecution presented key evidence.
Karvas laid out the broken lock of his office door, carved out of the frame and bagged in a rare kind of clear silk, as well as a ruined curtain from the burnt common room, and the literal empty desk drawer that once held the stolen letter.
At the sight of the drawer, Nissa shot Auria a comically disbelieving look, as if to say the melodrama is astounding. Auria found herself trying not to smile.
In an effort to establish motive, Karvas called Detective Dallar to the stand, who had seen Saffron approach Auria on the night of the Broad Row murders.
He hadn’t heard a word of the conversation, but he did admit that it looked fraught.
Karvas committed more egregious speculation in the name of constructing his narrative: that Killoran had approached Marriosan and convinced her to steal the letter.
He wasn’t far from the truth.
Auria tried not to be too rankled by the testimony. She had a powerful rebuttal, and while she’d never been skilled at polderdash—Killoran always mocked her for folding too early—she knew the card would have more impact if played later.
She cross-examined him, mining that ravine of uncertainty, having Dallar confirm repeatedly that he had not heard a word. Perhaps a wishy-washy tactic, one that often didn’t play so well with juries, but Auria knew that a judge as experienced as Nercan worshipped at the altar of reasonable doubt.